ReadonlyREST plugins officially support installation on Elasticsearch and Kibana working in Kubernetes cluster and managed by the ECK operator.
You can choose one of the following installation methods:
The easiest and fastest method to start with a ROR-powered ELK stack on ECK is to use our official images. We will show you how to do it in the following sections:
If we want to add the ReadonlyREST plugin to the simple Elasticsearch cluster specification from ECK Quickstart we should do it as below:
apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
name: quickstart
spec:
version: 8.14.3
# check https://hub.docker.com/r/beshultd/elasticsearch-readonlyrest
image: beshultd/elasticsearch-readonlyrest:8.14.3-ror-latest
nodeSets:
- name: default
count: 1
config:
node.store.allow_mmap: false
podTemplate:
spec:
containers:
- name: elasticsearch
# we have to run our image as root (id: 0) - after the required patching step Elasticsearch will be run using "elasticsearch" user (id: 1000)
securityContext:
runAsNonRoot: false
runAsUser: 0
runAsGroup: 0
env:
# we have to explicitly agree to patch the ES binaries (the patching step will be done only once)
- name: I_UNDERSTAND_IMPLICATION_OF_ES_PATCHING
value: "yes"
# these two passwords are used by "elastic-internal" and "elastic-internal-probe" users - these users are used by ECK
- name: INTERNAL_USR_PASS
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: quickstart-es-internal-users
key: elastic-internal
- name: INTERNAL_PROBE_PASS
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: quickstart-es-internal-users
key: elastic-internal-probe
# Kibana service account to handle internal Kibana requests
- name: KIBANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: quickstart-kibana-user
key: token
# the initial readonlyrest.yml file loaded by ROR plugin during ES startup
volumeMounts:
- name: config-ror
mountPath: /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/readonlyrest.yml
subPath: readonlyrest.yml
volumes:
- name: config-ror
configMap:
name: config-readonlyrest.yml
The initial settings can be defined as ConfigMap like this:
apiVersion: v1
data:
readonlyrest.yml: |
readonlyrest:
access_control_rules:
- name: "ELASTIC-INTERNAL"
verbosity: error
auth_key: "elastic-internal:${INTERNAL_USR_PASS}"
- name: "ELASTIC INTERNAL PROBE"
verbosity: error
auth_key: "elastic-internal-probe:${INTERNAL_PROBE_PASS}"
- name: "Kibana service account"
verbosity: error
token_authentication:
token: "Bearer ${KIBANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN}"
username: service_account
- name: "Admin access"
type: allow
auth_key: "admin:admin"
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: config-readonlyrest.yml
Notice that if you use ROR Enterprise, you can take advantage of the Cluster-wide Settings functionality and reload configuration on all your nodes without restarting K8s' PODs.
If we want to add the ReadonlyREST plugin to the simple Kibana instance specification from ECK Quickstart we should do it as follows:
apiVersion: kibana.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Kibana
metadata:
name: quickstart
spec:
version: 8.14.3
# check https://hub.docker.com/r/beshultd/kibana-readonlyrest
image: beshultd/kibana-readonlyrest:8.14.3-ror-latest
count: 1
elasticsearchRef:
name: quickstart
config:
# define ROR Kibana settings
# readonlyrest_kbn.store_sessions_in_index: true # we have to set it to true when we define more than one node
readonlyrest_kbn.cookiePass: "12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890"
podTemplate:
spec:
# we have to run our image as root (id: 0) - after the required patching step Kibana will be run using "kibana" user (id: 1000)
securityContext:
runAsNonRoot: false
runAsUser: 0
runAsGroup: 0
containers:
- name: kibana
env:
# we have to explicitly agree to patch the KBN binaries (the patching step will be done only once)
- name: I_UNDERSTAND_IMPLICATION_OF_KBN_PATCHING
value: "yes"
# we have to provide a ROR license if we want to use ROR Pro or Enterprise (if the license is not provided, then ROR Free is used)
- name: ROR_ACTIVATION_KEY
value: "<YOUR_ACTIVATION_KEY/>"
And these are all differences we need to make to run ECK Quickstart with ReadonlyREST instead of X-Pack security.
As you probably noticed, our docker images have to be run with root privileges. It's due to legal reasons and you, as a user, have to confirm that you agree to do the patching steps. If running a pod with root privileges is something you cannot accept, you can create your own image with the patching step done at the image creation level (not at runtime as our image does) and save it your your own registry.
Expand to see details
The minimal Elasticsearch with ROR image definition looks like this:
# 'Dockerfile' file content
ARG ES_VERSION
FROM docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:${ES_VERSION}
ARG ES_VERSION
ARG ROR_VERSION
USER elasticsearch
RUN /usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-plugin install --batch "https://api.beshu.tech/download/es?esVersion=$ES_VERSION&pluginVersion=$ROR_VERSION&email=[YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS]"
USER root
RUN /usr/share/elasticsearch/jdk/bin/java -jar /usr/share/elasticsearch/plugins/readonlyrest/ror-tools.jar patch
USER 1000:0
And then you can build it as follows:
docker build --build-arg ES_VERSION=8.14.3 --build-arg ROR_VERSION=1.59.0 -t elasticsearch-with-ror .
And place the elasticsearch-with-ror
image in your registry.
If we want to add the ReadonlyREST plugin to the simple Elasticsearch cluster specification from ECK Quickstart we should do it as below:
apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
name: quickstart
spec:
version: 8.14.3
# this is the image from your registry
image: elasticsearch-with-ror
nodeSets:
- name: default
count: 1
config:
node.store.allow_mmap: false
podTemplate:
spec:
containers:
- name: elasticsearch
env:
# these two passwords are used by "elastic-internal" and "elastic-internal-probe" users - these users are used by ECK
- name: INTERNAL_USR_PASS
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: quickstart-es-internal-users
key: elastic-internal
- name: INTERNAL_PROBE_PASS
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: quickstart-es-internal-users
key: elastic-internal-probe
# Kibana service account to handle internal Kibana requests
- name: KIBANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: quickstart-kibana-user
key: token
# the initial readonlyrest.yml file loaded by ROR plugin during ES startup
volumeMounts:
- name: config-ror
mountPath: /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/readonlyrest.yml
subPath: readonlyrest.yml
volumes:
- name: config-ror
configMap:
name: config-readonlyrest.yml
Check the section from the previous paragraph to see how to define config-ror
.
The minimal Kibana with ROR image definition looks like this:
# 'Dockerfile' file content
ARG KBN_VERSION
FROM docker.elastic.co/kibana/kibana:${KBN_VERSION}
ARG KBN_VERSION
ARG ROR_VERSION
RUN /usr/share/kibana/bin/kibana-plugin install "https://api.beshu.tech/download/kbn?esVersion=$KBN_VERSION&pluginVersion=$ROR_VERSION&edition=kbn_universal&email=[YOUR-EMAIL-ADDRESS]"
USER root
RUN /usr/share/kibana/node/bin/node plugins/readonlyrestkbn/ror-tools.js patch && \
chown -R kibana:kibana /usr/share/kibana/config
USER 1000:0
And then you can build it as follows:
docker build --build-arg KBN_VERSION=8.14.3 --build-arg ROR_VERSION=1.59.0 -t kibana-with-ror .
And place the kibana-with-ror
image in your registry.
If we want to add the ReadonlyREST plugin to the simple Kibana instance specification from ECK Quickstart we should do it as follows:
apiVersion: kibana.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Kibana
metadata:
name: quickstart
spec:
version: 8.14.3
# this is the image from your registry
image: kibana-with-ror
count: 1
elasticsearchRef:
name: quickstart
config:
# define ROR Kibana settings
# readonlyrest_kbn.store_sessions_in_index: true # we have to set it to true when we define more than one node
readonlyrest_kbn.cookiePass: "12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890"
podTemplate:
spec:
containers:
- name: kibana
env:
# we have to provide a ROR license if we want to use ROR Pro or Enterprise (if the license is not provided, then ROR Free is used)
- name: ROR_ACTIVATION_KEY
value: "<YOUR_ACTIVATION_KEY/>"
And these are all differences we need to make to run ECK Quickstart with ReadonlyREST instead of X-Pack security.
{% hint style="warning" %} This is not a recommended method. {% endhint %}
It's possible to install ROR using an Init Container. Unfortunately, this method is not as easy to use in the case of ROR. This is due to the required ReadonlyREST patching step (for both plugins), which allows ROR to work with Elasticsearch/Kibana. During this step, the ROR patcher tool modifies some of the Elasticsearch and Kibana binaries. Different versions of Elasticsearch/Kibana require different binaries to be modified. In order to do this in a Kubernetes-based environment, we need to mount appropriate locations from the Elasticsearch/Kibana POD to the init container that will install ROR. The volumes should have write permissions because of the changes made by the ROR patcher. You can still use this method, but as you can see it's not that easy.
Expand to see details
If you are still interested in this one, please take a look at the examples in our repository:
- ReadonlyREST SSL can be used but it's simpler to leave
xpack.security.enabled: true
and use X-Pack SSL instead - To figure out how to obtain the ROR License see our guide.
You can check the ROR-powered ECK Quickstart example by running our one-liner script. It supports MacOS and Linux.